Endemol’s South plans get a boost as Sun TV inks pact to show ‘Deal or No Deal’

[Deepu]

In order to exploit the big market for differentiated content down South, Endemol India is once again gearing up for a revival of its popular game show ‘Deal or No Deal’ with Sun TV. Confirming the news to TelevisionPost.com, Endemol India MD Deepak Dhar said, “South Indian audiences are seeing a lot of change in content sampling, hence our decision to revive ‘Deal or No Deal’ with Sun TV. As we have been present in the South for at least three years now, we are way ahead of our competitors and are now experimenting with differentiated content that audiences want.” The show ran on Sun TV (Tamil) and its sister channels Surya TV (Malayalam), Gemini TV (Telugu) and Udaya TV (Kannada) in 2009, airing over 400 episodes across all the four channels in the South. It will now return in a new avatar by year end and will air in at least three Southern languages, if not all four. However, Dhar confirmed that there is no plan to revive the show in Hindi as of yet. Running for three seasons on Sony Entertainment Television (SET) in Hindi from November 2005 to April 2006, the show had failed to garner a positive response from the audiences. The production house is currently focusing on the South, as the team gears up to unveil a host of shows for Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada audiences this year. Another property slated to commence soon is the big daddy of reality shows ‘Bigg Boss Kannada’, but this time on Asianet Suvarna. The first season of the show was aired on ETV Kannada, but the high cost of the show could not be borne by the channel and the show had to be taken off air this season. Currently in development, the second season of the show will be officially announced soon. ‘Bigg Boss Bangla’ has slipped away from ETV Bangla just after one season of airing. Without divulging details, Dhar said the second season of ‘Bigg Boss Bangla’ has been in development and will be announced by the end of the year or early next year. A lot of the formats are now travelling to regional markets, and even ‘Khatron Ke Khiladi’ will soon be adapted for the Southern market. The success of the Hindi version created a lot of buzz and Endemol is in discussion with potential partners. “Audiences want some disruption in programming and thus ‘Khatron Ke Khiladi’ too will be made into a regional-language show. Keeping the shows in mind, the budgets are in line with the respective markets,” he said. With its fiction show ‘Lagori…’ on Star Pravah garnering positive response, Endemol is making headway into the Marathi space as well. But Dhar also states that adaptation of differentiated fiction content is a little slow in the regional markets. The space will open up for more genres like crime, legal, investigative and paranormal content within the next year. “We are in talks to develop different fiction shows for regional markets. But we are seeing a huge shift in the non-fiction trend, that is to say, a move from Hindi to regional. Formats are the flavour now and audiences want unique content. Telugu is a big market and a lot of our formats will see immediate extensions in these markets,” he explained. Endemol will expand its presence in the South not only in terms of TV content, but also films in various languages. It recently released ‘Anaamika’ in Tamil and Telugu, a remake of the acclaimed Hindi film ‘Kahaani’. ‘Anaamika’ garnered good response and set the tone for the production house to work on more such remakes as well as original films. With CA Media acquiring a 49 per cent stake in Endemol in 2012, the investment has moulded the film business of the company into good shape. While ‘Kahaani’ was a collaboration with Viacom18 Motion Pictures in the South, Endemol’s Eyedentity Motion Pictures is gearing up to release the Hindi version of Malayalam film ‘Traffic’ with Fox Star Studios, starring Manoj Bajpayee and Jimmy Shergill in the lead roles. The much awaited project of making ‘Bigg Boss’ into a movie is also taking shape and the crew is being finalised presently, Dhar said. It is also in active discussions with Lionsgate Films for its movie ‘Warrior’, whose cast and other details will be announced soon. Even as the focus is on the South, Endemol is also developing a lot of television content for the Hindi general entertainment channels. After developing ‘Encounter’ for Sony, they have now unveiled a high-octane fiction show, ‘Yudh’, with Amitabh Bachchan which might replace ‘Encounter’ soon. The Hindi version of ‘Bigg Boss’ too is in development and will be finalised after ‘Bigg Boss Kannada’ goes on air. Meanwhile, Endemol has its hands full with ‘Hospital’, an adaptation of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and a thriller series ‘The Killing’ in the pipeline. They will also be developing shows for the youth channels on the lines of ‘Heroes’, which it does for Channel V and ‘Emotional Atyachaar’ for Bindass. Dhar said, “From a commercial point of view, we are considering all kinds of content, not just high-impact fiction or non-fiction. We have to pick ideas and see what commercial opportunities it presents. International formats have a lot of such opportunities, but then you also have to see what can be viable.” He further revealed that they are in the process of bringing down two new international show formats to India which include the game show ‘1 Versus 100’ and a talent hunt-styled format ‘Your Face’.

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